20/03/2008

Trust Film Sales has added two European co-productions to its line-up: the Danish/German/Hungarian 2D animation project Prima Ballerina by Valerie Saunders, and the Hungarian/Swedish/Irish thriller The Investigator by Attila Gigor.

The €3.2m Prima Ballerina is co-produced by Denmark’s Rambling Rose Film (50% owned by Zentropa), Germany’s Lunaris Film (part of Odeon Film) and Hungary’s Studio Baestart. It is the first Danish animation film picked up by Walt Disney Studios for the Nordic territories.

The project aimed at 5-8 year-olds is the directorial debut of former ballerina Saunders, whose previous short films have all focused on the dance world. Based on a script by Ole Meldgaard, the film is a Cinderella story about eight-year-old Honey who dreams of becoming a prima ballerina at the Royal Theatre in Bourneville. Her perseverance is put to a test when her father wants her to come back and work at the family farm. Nevertheless, Honey still makes it to the audition on time.

Saunders, who introduced the project to co-financiers at the last Cartoon Movie co-production market in Babelsberg, was very pleased with the way the project was received and hopes to go into production this summer.

Zentropa’s sales arm Trust Film Sales also recently picked up for world distribution Gigor’s directorial debut The Investigator which won five awards at the last Hungarian Film Week. The thriller was produced by Hungary’s KMH Film in co-production with Sweden’s Anagram Produktion and Ireland’s Fastnet Films, with all post-production carried out at Sweden’s Film I Väst.